ABSTRACT
In some experimental studies, children seem to be interpreting pronouns as if they were reflexives, and this is the one error that they should not be making. Children's performance on anaphora tasks is more of a mixed success than had been predicted. The fact that pragmatic rules are brought into play for pronominals and not for reflexives could result in an imbalance between children's success with reflexives and pronouns. For the pronoun her to be interpreted as a variable bound by the quantified expression every woman, the two must be coindexed. If a reformulation of the Binding Theory were the correct route to take, the problematic experimental acquisition results with pronouns could become more understandable. According to the reformulated Principle B based on the bound variable interpretation of pronouns, children know that grammatical binding of a pronominal and a quantified antecedent cannot occur in the local domain.
